Book Description

Eleven quarter-page line drawings and one headpiece in black and white by Thomas Lowinsky. One of 500 copies on Batchelor’s handmade paper, along with an unlimited regular edition. 8vo, original two-tone publisher’s cloth, covers in red with brown spine lettered and blocked in gilt. 14.5 x 22cm, 127pp. London, Nonesuch Press, printed by the Fanfare Press. Eighteen quarter-page line drawings by Thomas Lowinsky. One of 100 copies on Batchelor’s handmade paper, along with an unlimited regular edition. 8vo, original two-tone publisher’s cloth, covers in blue with red spine lettered and blocked in gilt, 14.5 x 22cm, 169pp. London, Nonesuch Press, printed at the fanfare press. 1931, 1935. Very good, some small spots of soiling to cloth covers, More Lovely Food with some browning to edges of covers, spines only very slightly faded, spot of thumb soiling to title page of Lovely Food otherwise both volumes are internally fine. Both volumes with neat pictorial bookplate of Allan Browning Lane on front pastedown. Overall, an attractive and presentable matching set of the desirable special editions. Ruth Lowinsky’s recipes and the accompanying illustrations of fascinatingly implausible table decorations by her husband, Thomas, whose association with the Nonesuch Press began in 1928 with Voltaire’s Princess of Babylon, offer a witty approach to entertaining in the established tradition of the British upper classes. Both volumes are divided into set menus which ’should be well within the range of even a young cook, if they are read to her and carefully explained and she has any gift for cooking,’ with each menu prefaced by a brief introduction suggesting a suitable occasion on which to serve it: ‘This lunch, it is hoped, will partly reconcile keen sportsmen to the horror of a day in Scotland in August spent in the house and in female society. A blinding storm makes shooting impossible, and, the river being in spate, even fishing is hopeless.’ Copious space is left for the ‘hostess’ to leave comments on each menu, and a gathering of supplementary pages offer the outline of a list to record such details as the names of attendees, what the hostess wore on a particular occasion, guests’ likes and dislikes, and games played of an evening. These diverting commentaries, along with the advice given for choosing a butler or cook, offer a window into the final flowering of a world that mostly disappeared with the Second World War, contrasting dramatically with the home cooking books of Julia Child and Elizabeth David which were to follow. Meynell comments that Thomas’s approach to book illustration was to integrate his designs to the text and to involve himself in the printing process, from choosing the paper to checking impressions. When illustrating his wife’s work, the task of integration was simplified. He suggests that, ‘his book designs should be studied and will be admired in the books for which they were made’. [ The Nonesuch Century , p. 75 and pl. 79; Dreyfus, Nonesuch , pp. 149-50, 222, 233.]
Author LOWINSKY (Ruth) NONESUCH PRESS
Date 1931, 1935.
Binding Original two-tone publisher’s cloth, covers in red with brown spine lettered and blocked in gilt.
Illustrator Thomas Lowinsky
Condition Very good.
Pages 127; 169pp.

Price: £375.00

Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

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